I wasn’t expecting a math journal entry to shift my perspective. But as I scanned through my students’ reflections that morning, one response stopped me in my tracks:
“It’s more important to me that my teacher sees me as a person than if I get all the answers right.”
A student, who I’ll call Jason, had been in my class for months — quiet, polite, barely noticeable. Not failing, not thriving. Just…there.
Jason’s words reflected what many students feel but rarely say. As I reviewed other journal entries, I discovered an echo of voices expressing uncertainty, quiet resilience and a desire to be heard. I highlighted themes and let their words settle in, but as responses piled up, I needed help seeing the bigger picture.
That’s when I turned to artificial intelligence (AI), using it to help summarize journal entries — not replacing my judgment but sharpening it. ChatGPT surfaced patterns I might have missed: anxiety about speaking up, appreciation for kindness, the importance of being seen. AI didn’t give me a summary of responses — it gave me perspective, revealing what my students were telling me between the lines.
Too many students walk into math class carrying untold stories — about race, failure, shame, invisibility. And math, with its perceived rigid right-or-wrong structure, often leaves little room for the messiness of being human. Reflective journals and AI made that space. They reminded us that learning is emotional before it’s cognitive.
For educators exploring how to move from algorithms to empathy, here’s what I’ve learned:
Use AI as a reflection partner to surface trends in student voice. I introduced reflective journals with prompts like “How do you see yourself in math?” and “Where might math be important in your life?” When responses accumulated, AI helped me identify emotional throughlines—what students feared, valued, and needed to feel seen. It didn’t analyze feelings for me; it spotlighted patterns across dozens of responses, allowing me to respond not just as a content expert, but as a listener who could address the class’s collective needs.
Let AI handle the grunt work so you can do the heart work. After AI helped me identify themes like “I don’t feel smart, but I try harder than people know” and “I’m not the only one scared to ask for help,” I shared these anonymous insights with my class. Heads nodded. The room shifted. These reflections weren’t about fixing students — they were about making space where vulnerability felt safe and mathematical identity could evolve.
Design with AI — not for it. I didn’t start by asking what AI could do, but rather “What do my students need to feel seen, challenged and supported?” Only then did I explore how technology could help me meet those needs more thoughtfully and efficiently. The tools followed the vision, not the other way around.
Treat AI like a co-teacher, not a substitute. AI will never replace the personal connections at the heart of teaching, but it can help me see what I might miss in the everyday chaos of the classroom. This partnership allows me to combine technological insights with the relational knowledge that only comes from knowing my students.
The day after reading Jason’s journal entry, I greeted him more intentionally and shared that I had once felt the same way about being seen as a person first. It was a tiny signal: I see you. This breakthrough emerged from recognizing that community building in math class doesn’t require elaborate group projects or icebreakers. Sometimes it starts with something quieter: giving students space to examine their relationship with mathematics itself, then using AI to help us listen more deeply to what they’re telling us.
A week later, Jason lingered after class. “Thanks,” he said. “For, like, sharing with me.”
That two-second moment cracked something open — for both of us. Because behind every silence is a student waiting to be seen. And sometimes, the most powerful data we can use isn’t a test score or a benchmark — it’s a journal entry, a nod of recognition, or a quiet “thank you” made visible with the help of AI, reminding us why we teach.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon released her budget proposal for next year, and it’s as bad as expected.
Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education, reviewed the budget and concluded that it shows a reckless disregard for the neediest students and schools and outright hostility towards students who want to go to college.
We know that Trump “loves the uneducated.” Secretary McMahon wants more of them.
Burris sent out the following alert:
Linda McMahon, handpicked by Donald Trump to lead the U.S. Department of Education, has just released the most brutal, calculated, and destructive education budget in the Department’s history.
She proposes eliminating $8.5 billion in Congressionally funded programs—28 in total—abolishing 10 outright and shoving the other 18 into a $2 billion block grant. That’s $4.5 billion less than those 18 programs received last year.
And it gets worse: States are banned from using the block grant to support the following programs funded by Congress:
Aid for migrant children whose families move frequently for agricultural work
English Language Acquisition grants for emerging English learners
Community schools offering wraparound services
Grants to improve teacher effectiveness and leadership
Innovation and research for school improvement
Comprehensive Centers, including those serving students with disabilities
Technical assistance for desegregation
The Ready to Learn program for young children
These aren’t just budget cuts—they’re targeted strikes.
McMahon justifies cutting support for migrant children by falsely claiming the program “encourages ineligible non-citizens to access taxpayer dollars.” That is a lie. Most migrant farmworkers are U.S. citizens or have H-2A visas. They feed this nation with their backbreaking labor.
The attack continues for opportunity for higher education:
Pell Grants are slashed by $1,400 on average; the maximum grant drops from $7,395 to $5,710
Federal Work-Study loses $1 billion—an 80% cut
TRIO programs, which support college-readiness and support for low-income students, veterans, and students with disabilities, are eliminated
Campus child care programs for student-parents are defunded
In all, $1.67 billion in student college assistance is gone—wiped out on top of individual Pell grant cuts.
And yet, McMahon increased funding for the federal Charter Schools Program to half a billion dollars for a sector that saw an increase of only eleven schools last year. Meanwhile, her allies in Congress are pushing a $5 billion private school and homeschool voucher scheme through the so-called Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA).
And despite reducing Department staff by 50%, she only cuts the personnel budget by 10%.
This is not budgeting. It is a war on public education.
This is a blueprint for privatization, cruelty, and the systematic dismantling of opportunity for America’s children.
Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, right, listens as Ken Kapphahn of the Legislative Analyst’s Office critiques Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed education budget at a hearing on May 22.
Credit: State Senate Media Archive
Top Takeaways
A drop in project state revenue projections from January to May, while avoiding cuts, would compound a dilemma.
Newsom also would increase funding for early literacy and after-school programs.
Key legislators share concern about draining the rainy day fund and deferring payments.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office is criticizing Gov. Gavin Newsom’s spending plan for next year for schools and community colleges. It says the May revision of the 2025-26 state budget would create new debt, rely on one-time funding to pay for ongoing operations, and drain the education rainy day fund to pay for new programs and enlarge existing ones.
The Legislature should reject the financially unsound practices, which would “put the state and districts behind the eight ball” if state revenues fall short of projections, Ken Kapphahn, senior fiscal and policy analyst for the LAO, told the Legislature’s budget committees on May 22.
The LAO provides the Legislature with nonpartisan analysis and advice on fiscal and policy issues.
In his budget for 2025-26, Newsom would protect TK-12 and community colleges from a $4.4 billion drop in projected state revenue between his January and revised May budgets and add $2 billion in spending to the administration’s priorities, which include:
Qualifying more students for coverage of summer and after-school learning through the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program ($526 million).
Hiring more math and literacy coaches and training teachers in literacy instruction ($745 million). The money would reflect legislation that the Legislature is expected to pass requiring textbooks and instruction practices to incorporate phonics and foundational skills.
Reducing the student-to-staff ratio in transitional kindergarten from 12 to 1 to 10 to 1 ($517 million).
Paying stipends for student teachers ($100 million).
The biggest budget challenge is that the projected Proposition 98 guarantee for 2025-26 — the minimum portion of the state’s General Fund that must be spent on TK-12 and community colleges — fell $4.4 billion — from $118.9 billion in the initial budget in January to $114.5 billion in May — because of revised revenue forecasts for California that project a drop in stock market earnings and uncertain impacts from President Donald Trump’s economic policies.
Newsom’s May budget would include some cuts and savings from, for example, lower projected enrollment in transitional kindergarten. It would also withdraw or reduce nearly $400 million in community college funding for updating data systems and investing in Newsom’s Master Plan for Career Education (see Page 28 of his budget summary).
But he’d primarily rely on financial tactics that the LAO cited as fiscally risky and unwise:
Committing $1.6 billion in one-time funding for ongoing funding, a strategy that could leave the state short of funding starting a year from now;
Depleting the Prop. 98 rainy day fund by $1.5 billion;
Issuing a $2.3 billion IOU by pushing back paying $1.8 billion for TK-12 and $532 million for community colleges from June 2026 to the next fiscal year in 2026-27. This deferral, though only for several weeks, creates a debt that must be repaid. Paying it off will eat into state revenue for districts and community colleges in the subsequent year.
Issuing deferrals and digging into the state’s reserves have been done before during recessions and financial emergencies, but should be viewed as “a tool of last resort,” not as solutions to difficult spending choices, Kapphahn said.
“The state historically has tried to contain spending during tight times to protect funding for core programs,” its critique said. “May Revision would task districts with hiring staff and expanding local programs based on funding levels that the state might be unable to sustain.”
Neither LAO nor Newsom is predicting a financial recession, but both project weakened state revenues over the next two years.
The LAO’s option
The LAO put forward an alternative budget that it claims would meet the revised, lower Prop. 98 minimum funding guarantee for 2025-26, including a required 2.3% cost-of-living adjustment for community colleges and schools. It would avoid deferrals, reduce $1.6 billion in ongoing spending, and reject many of Newsom’s one-time spending proposals, including literacy training and materials.
Instead, consistent with local control, it would increase an existing discretionary block grant to let districts choose how to spend much less new money.
Negotiations in the coming weeks between Newsom and legislative leaders will determine what’s in the final budget. However, two Democratic leaders who chair budget committees overseeing education in the Assembly and Senate said they shared the LAO’s skepticism.
Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, said he felt uncomfortable recommending increased funding for individual programs that “set us on for being in trouble next year.”
“If we do all this, and the projections are accurate,” he said at the May 22 hearing, “there will not be enough money to pay off deferrals and make the COLA. The decision to put us in that position we are making now, potentially creating a bad situation for next year.”
Assemblymember David Alvarez, D-San Diego, who chairs the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance, said he too is concerned that the proposed budget would deplete the last $1.5 billion of the rainy day fund, which was $8.4 billion only two years ago.
At the same time, he agrees with Newsom’s new spending on literacy instruction and funding for stipends for student teachers. And he would add in money for ethnic studies that Newsom didn’t include. Without the funding, the mandate for a semester-long ethnic studies course that the Legislature required, starting in 2025-26, cannot take effect.
Alvarez didn’t suggest budget cuts to make room for ethnic studies.
This story was updated on 4/16 to include the latest information on California’s drop in completed FAFSA applications.
Unprecedented difficulties in students applying for federal financial aid have wreaked havoc among financial aid and admissions officers across California’s colleges and universities, who are facing longer hours and more stress, sometimes while short on staff.
Since its initial delay last year from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, the U.S. Department of Education’s rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form has been challenging and frustrating for students, their families and the college campuses they seek to attend. For many students, financial aid plays a significant role in deciding where and if they will go to college.
And the resulting delays have pushed back students’ decisions.
Kamila Juarez, a senior at Grace Davis High in Modesto, has been accepted to all the universities she’s applied to including Cal Poly SLO, UC Davis, UCLA and UC San Diego, but she hasn’t decided where she will go because financial aid is the biggest influence on her decision. And Juarez hasn’t heard anything yet about how much she will receive, which has created a frustrating situation.
“It’s kind of stressful,” she said, adding that if money were not an option her first choice would be Cal Poly followed by UCLA. “When I do know how much I get, I know I’ll have to decide pretty fast.”
Both UC and CSU systems extended the deadline for Intent to Register for fall 2024 to no earlier than May 15. A host of other Cal State campuses extended it further to June 1 because of the delays.
Harder hit than other states
California, in particular, has been hard hit in the FAFSA debacle because of the large number of “mixed-status” families, or U.S. citizens who have at least one parent without a Social Security number. Many of those students have been unable to submit a FAFSA. Last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom, the California Student Aid Commission and the UC and Cal State systems agreed that students could submit a California Dream Act application in place of the FAFSA so they could at least receive priority access to state financial aid. The Dream Act is typically only available to undocumented students.
“We do hope to get offers out (soon). It still feels like there is an equity issue between being able to send out financial aid offers that have zero problems to not being able to provide financial aid offers to students that fit in these other scenarios,” said Becki Sanchez, director of financial aid at UC Irvine. “In a sense, it makes us feel very uneasy.”
The situation doesn’t seem to be improving.
“It has been very scary, to say the least, trying to keep up with all of these changes and errors and resolutions that don’t make sense from the feds,” said Sonia Jethani, director of financial aid and scholarships at California State University, East Bay.“We’re hanging in there. We have to make sure that we’re on top of it in order to answer the students and provide support to them as much as possible. But I’ve never seen this before.”
Financial aid and admissions officers say that in the nearly 40 years that the FAFSA has existed, this year’s problems have been unprecedented.
Typically, as has been the process for decades, high school seniors and community college transfer students would begin completing the FAFSA in October to meet California’s March priority deadline for access to state aid like the Cal Grant. During that period, those students would submit applications to the colleges and universities that they’re seeking admission to, so they would have their offer letters by early spring. The traditional timing allowed financial aid offices to send details about grants, loans and scholarships to students around March and April, in time for them to make a decision on the college they plan to attend in the fall.
But this year’s repeated FAFSA disruptions means colleges haven’t been able to send out aid awards, either because students have had trouble applying, the department has miscalculated some students’ aid, or colleges haven’t received any aid information from the department. Each award letter sent by colleges to their admitted students that complete a financial aid application is customized with a combination of federal, state and institutional, grants, loans and scholarships.
California extended deadline
According to the National College Attainment Network’s FAFSA tracker, California is among the states that dropped the most in FAFSA completions compared to last year before the form was revised. As of April 5, completions were down 43.4%.
California extended its priority FAFSA application deadline to May 2.
“We should have had our financial aid packages ready by now,” Jethani said. “We probably won’t be ready to send out aid notifications until the second half of this month.”
Financial aid officers at Cal Poly Pomona anticipate that they will start sending award letters to students this week. The campus added workshops, including on Saturdays, to host informational sessions and help students complete the FAFSA. Jeanette Phillips, executive director of financial aid and scholarships for the campus, said they will also do some extra tracking and target their communications to make sure their admitted students completed the FAFSA.
“Like many schools. we’re a little short-staffed, but we are doing our very best,” Phillips said, adding that the delays have added work to their normal spring duties like processing summer financial aid, which “is a significantly manual process. … We still have to work with our current students. We have a number of appeals that students have submitted for financial review.”
Phillips said normally the financial aid officers would have plenty of time to focus and prioritize, “but now we have to double up, triple up our energy and efforts to try to handle” everything.
Because the Pomona campus is fielding more questions and concerns from families this year, Phillips said financial aid officers are spending about an extra 15% of their time meeting with students.
The mistakes from the federal department also have financial aid officers adding unique disclosures to the information they give their potential students. The department notified colleges last week that they made mistakes on tax information submitted by students, amounting to about 30% to 40% of unusable files.
“We feel like the Department of Education has basically put it on the universities to figure this out for our students,” Sanchez said. “It’s really disappointing, their response to this.”
Sanchez said the Irvine campus has about 30% of financial aid offers it can’t send because they need to be reprocessed by the department.
Jethani said the East Bay financial aid officers are providing disclosures to students within their financial aid packages that the information they receive is based on information that could change because of the various errors and mistakes from the department.
Some of the mistakes are due to the new formula the department is using to determine aid. In the past, the FAFSA used “expected family contribution” to calculate students’ aid, but the new form uses the “student aid index formula.” In March, the department announced a miscalculation of the student aid index, which led to further delays.
CSU East Bay and some other campus have partnered with third-party vendors to help with their FAFSA “backend processing” like verifying information because they are short on staff, and the East Bay campus anticipates it will also be “triaging” and fielding various questions from students even after the fall term begins, Jethani said.
During a hearing on the FAFSA debacle on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, gave the department an F grade for its rollout.
“This really adds up to a crisis of credibility for the Department of Education,” he said. “If there was a financial aid director or even a college president that delayed financial aid on their campus for up to six months, the professional price that would be paid for that would be pretty steep.”
And as for those mixed-status students that are now encouraged to fill out the Dream Act application, Sanchez said her office will still try to encourage them to complete the FAFSA.
“These are U.S. citizens, and they are entitled to federal student aid such as the Pell Grant and student loans, federal work-study, and all those things that they are not eligible for under the (Dream Act application),” she said.
Impact on enrollments
The ripple effect of this year’s FAFSA delays is expected to significantly affect campuses’ enrollments, especially those that have faced challenges encouraging students to attend.
“Universities nationwide are likely seeing enrollment downturns just like East Bay right now,” Jethani said. “We are low in enrollment, and we are low in applications, and we are low on decisions because all of these students are waiting on their financial aid to be able to decide on whether they can afford to come. This is a pretty scary time for everyone.”
The universities are facing pressure to maintain or raise their enrollments, but Phillips said California has an additional competitor for students to contend with: an increase in the minimum wage.
“The decision that some students are making out of high school is, do I go get that $20 an hour job or do I go to school?” Phillips said.
About 70% of Cal Poly Pomona’s students receive some form of financial aid, which means that the delays have made it difficult for the campus to project what the fall enrollment will look like, said Jessica Wagoner, senior associate vice president of enrollment management and services.
The UC system, on the other hand, saw record applications this year because of an increase in students who want to transfer, and there are expectations that enrollment will continue to increase across its campuses. But there is still concern that the FAFSA problems will particularly affect low-income and first-generation students.
“We’re a very popular campus, so I’m not worried about us making our big numbers,” said Dale Leaman, executive director of undergraduate admissions for UC Irvine. “The thing that concerns me the most is the students who just get so frustrated with the situation that they just give up … especially our first-generation families, where parents have not gone through this.”
Sanchez said families have lost a lot of trust in the department because of the poor FAFSA rollout, so the responsibility will fall on universities to rebuild that trust.
“My job is to make this successful in spite of things going bad,” she said. “My plan is if the Department of Education isn’t going to pull it together, we are certainly going to make sure that our students are OK, that they’re not harmed, that they start classes on time, that they don’t have to worry about these things.”
California Student Journalism Corps member Ashley Bolter contributed to this report.
Jamelle Bouie writes an opinion column for The New York Times, and he is my favorite on that site. His insights are clear and sharp. In this column, he reminds us that Republicans have a long history of promises about tax cuts for the middle class that have ended up enriching the wealthiest and increasing inequality.
He writes:
It’s 1981. A Republican president and his allies in Congress are promising large, broad tax cuts that will benefit the middle class and strengthen the economy.
It’s 2001. A Republican president is promising broad tax cuts that will benefit the middle class and strengthen the economy.
It’s 2003. That same president is promising another round of broad tax cuts that will benefit the middle class and strengthen the economy.
It’s 2017. Yet another Republican president is promising broad tax cuts that will benefit the middle class and strengthen the economy.
With each new Republican administration, it is the same promise. With each round of tax cuts, it is the same result: vast benefits for the wealthiest Americans and a pittance for everyone else. There is little growth but widening inequality and an even starker gap between the haves and have-nots.
President Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts, which inaugurated the pattern, slashed the top tax rate on investment income to 50 percent from 70 percent and the capital gains rate to 20 percent from 28 percent. “New tax benefits for business were so generous,” Michael J. Graetz writes in “The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America,” “that corporate tax receipts declined from about 15 percent to less than 9 percent of federal revenues.” The law, he continues, “substantially cut taxes on income generated from wealth, increased opportunities for tax-free savings by upper-income Americans and greatly expanded tax-shelter opportunities for high-income individuals and corporations.” It also “reduced taxes on transfers of wealth from the richest Americans to their descendants by exempting all but a small fraction of the wealthiest 1 percent” from the estate tax.
Over the next decade, Reagan and his successor George H.W. Bush were forced to raise taxes as a result of this profligacy. Reagan signed deficit-reducing tax increases in 1982, 1983, 1984 and 1987. Bush signed a significant tax increase in 1990, breaking his “Read my lips” election-year promise not to raise taxes.
George W. Bush rejected his father’s fiscal heterodoxy in favor of the unrepentant supply-side orthodoxy of Reagan’s first year. Sold as middle-class tax relief, the $1.7 trillion George W. Bush tax cuts — passed in 2001 and 2003 — were by and large a handout to the wealthiest Americans. As Graetz notes, they “reduced federal revenues from 20 percent of G.D.P. in 2000 to 15.6 percent in 2004,” and when all the changes were phased in, “they raised the after-tax incomes of people in the top 1 percent by nearly 6.5 percent — $54,000 on average — compared to about 1 percent, or an average of $207, for the bottom 40 percent.” In a 2017 analysis of the legacy of the George W. Bush tax cuts, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that the top 1 percent of households received an average tax cut of over $570,000 from 2004 to 2012. Not surprisingly, it also found that these cuts “did not improve economic growth or pay for themselves, but instead ballooned deficits and debt and contributed to a rise in income inequality.”
We can basically copy and paste this dynamic from Reagan and George W. Bush to Donald Trump, who sold his 2017 tax cuts as — you guessed it — middle-class relief. “Our focus is on helping the folks who work in the mailrooms and the machine shops of America,” he told supporters in the fall of 2017. “The plumbers, the carpenters, the cops, the teachers, the truck drivers, the pipe fitters, the people that like me best.”
Except — surprise! — a vast majority of the benefits of the $1.9 trillion Tax Cuts and Jobs Act went to the highest earners — millionaire chief executives and billionaire owners of large companies. Americans in the middle received an average tax cut of $910. Americans in the top 1 percent received an average cut of $61,090. The 2017 law also cut estate taxes and gave new advantages to real estate investors, direct benefits for Trump and his family.
We are now looking at another round of Republican tax cuts. Yet again the claim is that this will benefit most Americans. “The next phase of our plan to deliver the greatest economy in history is for this Congress to pass tax cuts for everybody,” Trump said in his March 4 address to Congress. But as Paul Krugman points out in his Substack newsletter, this latest package is both a shameless giveaway to the rich and a ruinous cut to safety net programs for lower-income and working Americans.
The tax and benefit cuts are, in fact, two sides of the same coin. To pay for the more than $1.1 trillion in tax cuts for people with incomes above $500,000, the House Republican framework would cut $300 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — snatching food assistance away from millions of low-income families — and $800 billion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, leaving an estimated 10 million or more Americans without health insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The top 0.1 percent of earners would see their income grow; the bottom 20 percent would see it plummet.
It remains to be seen whether Republicans can pass their bill in the form they want. They have had some trouble moving it out of the House of Representatives and into the Senate. But if they can, it’s hard to imagine that there will be much appetite to kill the president’s “big, beautiful bill.”
Which is all to say that it’s 2025, and a Republican president has promised a broad tax cut that will help the middle class and strengthen the economy. I think we know what is going to come next.
A sixth grade math teacher helps two students during a lesson about math and music.
Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education
Becoming a public school teacher is a calling. It’s incredible to see students learn and grow and achieve their dreams. Many see this as a rewarding career and want to pursue it, which raises the question — why would anyone be in favor of unnecessary hurdles for these aspiring educators?
In my work as an educator, with more than 30 years in the classroom and as vice president of the California Teachers Association (CTA), I’ve seen firsthand and heard from educators up and down the state about the deeply problematic Teaching Performance Assessments (TPAs). These assessments were enacted to measure the teaching performance of prospective teachers.
There is no shortage of horror stories about the TPAs. We hear from talented teachers constantly that they are long and time-consuming. They are full of low-value tasks, and they come at a very busy time for new educators. They do not prepare teachers for the classroom and detract from programs with proven success.
Aspiring teachers can better learn the teaching craft in the real world. Vital preparation for new educators includes working with mentors to improve their instruction, having time to concentrate on developing quality lesson plans, and learning how to apply knowledge gained from a credential program in real classrooms. These programs consistently assess student teachers. They ensure we meet California’s high teaching standards.
The TPAs also keep talented educators out of the profession of public education. This is especially true for Black, Indigenous and people of color working to become teachers. Educators of color have raised concerns about biases undermining their success at passing the TPAs. Moreover, aspiring teachers must pay $300 out-of-pocket to take these assessments. After spending thousands of dollars on a degree, one can see how this costly assessment becomes an impossible hurdle for too many.
This is why CTA is sponsoring Senate Bill 1263 to eliminate the TPAs, alongside Sen. Josh Newman.
Two years ago, I began leading a CTA work group with educators from across the state. We met to study the teacher shortage. We aimed to find ways to ease the problem and increase teacher diversity. Our group determined that these assessments hurt teacher training. They harm our new teacher pipeline and hinder efforts to diversify public education careers.
We compiled this data and analysis from educators and practitioners, including a survey of educators. We took this information to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) and noted the disproportionate impact on educator candidates (see page 33). This issue was first raised three years ago by the California Alliance of Researchers for Equity in Education when the group asked the commission to end high-stakes testing in teacher education, citing concerns with “validity, reliability, fairness and bias.”
At the meeting, Commissioner Christopher Davis underscored the TPA’s “disproportionate harm” to teaching candidates from diverse backgrounds: “We continue to struggle with the reality that our state, through these examinations, is systematically discriminating against the very diversity it alleges it wants to track into our workforce.”
In December, the commission heard our call, adopting a secondary passing standard in the event an educator did not complete the TPA requirement. This allows teacher candidates who met all other credential requirements a path to a credential if they demonstrate Teacher Performance Expectations (TPE) through classroom observations, course projects and similar avenues.
This is a step in the right direction. More than 1,500 aspiring California educators who did not pass the TPA would have met the secondary standard in 2022-23, meaning they would be spared the cost and extreme stress of retaking the TPA.
Our work continues. As Sen. Newman said, the issue is simple: “One key to improving the educator pipeline is removing barriers that may be dissuading otherwise talented and qualified prospective people from pursuing a career as an educator.”
We must end the unnecessary TPA and evolve our state system of educator preparation to better equip teachers to bridge California’s diverse students to bright futures. This is becoming a national standard. Other states including New York, New Jersey, Georgia and even Texas have already eliminated the TPA requirement. It’s time for California to take this step forward and improve the path for aspiring educators on their way to the classroom.
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Leslie Littmanis vice president of the California Teachers Association. She previously taught AP U.S. history, economics and government at Hart High School in the William S. Hart Union School District in Santa Clarita.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Gov. Gavin Newsom joins Chief Service Officer Josh Fryday and higher education leaders at a College Corps swearing-in celebration.
Credit: Office of the Governor
In 2022, the state launched the #CaliforniansForAll College Corps program. Spread across 45 campuses throughout the state, the program is designed to help college students pay for their schooling in exchange for performing community service: It offers $10,000 for 450 hours of service, paid through 10 monthly installments of $700 and an additional $3,000 for completing the program.
This new program is well-intentioned, but there is room for improvement.
I joined College Corps during its inauguration, under the regional chapter — Sacramento Valley College Corps, formed by California State University, Sacramento; UC Davis; Sacramento City College and Woodland Community College. After completing the application to be a fellow beginning in the summer, I was paired with a host site almost immediately. My placement was with First Star Sacramento State Academy, a college-preparation program aimed at helping high school students within the foster care system graduate and go to college. This help was provided through the tutoring and resources offered by youth mentors, which was my position at First Star.
Prior to my admission into College Corps, I was already an employee of First Star; the director of the program worked with College Corps to ensure I got placed there. But I took on a new role: College Corps fellow.
This meant I was no longer a student assistant working only 10 hours a week. Now I was expected to work almost double that as a fellow, and my responsibilities grew.
My experience with First Star as a youth mentor was wonderful. I already knew the program and the students in it. I had an established relationship with the supervisor, program coordinator and director. It was working under College Corps where challenges arose.
After completing one year with College Corps at First Star, I re-enrolled in the program as part of its second cohort. My new host site was Girl Scouts Heart of Central California. Since it was located only seven minutes from my campus, I thought this was going to be a great match.
Unfortunately, the job required going from city to city, and I do not own a car, so I had to withdraw from the program only one month in. In addition, my supervisor expected us fellows to complete some of our hours in the Modesto office, nearly a 1.5-hour commute. (I learned that right after I left, the remaining fellows were given rental cars to complete their hours.)
Another problem was that many Girl Scout events took place in the evening, since they were after-school activities for the girls. As a full-time student taking mostly evening classes, I struggled to fulfill my hours as the opportunities to do so were either far away, or at a time I was in class, or both.
Since I was part of the very first cohort of the College Corps, it is understandable that my experience was not entirely smooth.
For starters, there seemed to be a disconnect with College Corpsand the external host sites. Fellows at some placements struggled to complete the required hours because host sites simply didn’t have enough service opportunities. This was a real problem because failure to complete the required hours put College Corps fellows at risk of losing the $3,000 education award promised to them upon completion.
Another challenge was the payment method. We were paid via a prepaid debit card that was quite cumbersome to use. I also had problems receiving my $3,000 education award.
Thankfully, College Corps ditched the prepaid cards in the second year and now pays fellows via simple checks, although direct deposit is still not available for the second cohort.
Yesenia Toribio, a Sacramento State student and former College Corps fellow, acknowledged the positives of the program. “I felt very supported by my supervisor at my host site and the staff in charge of leading the cohort for College Corps at Sacramento State. Everyone was so patient and understanding, it made me feel like I was a part of something bigger.
“I truly believe the downsides were because we were the first cohort and they were still trying to figure out the program,” Toribio said.
However, she added, “It was difficult trying to manage completing 450 hours of community service while being a full-time student and working part time.”
But, despite the growing pains, I can still see the promise and potential of the College Corps. Being part of it provided us with many benefits — not just monetary. The program allowed fellows to get involved with different events such as feeding the homeless, runs, river cleanups and more. The program also allowed fellows to make connections, and I still consider the fellow youth mentors at First Star as my close friends.
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Aya Mikbel is a fourth-year student studying political science and journalism at California State University, Sacramento and a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
The Dunamis House in Boyle Heights is owned and operated by Los Angeles Room & Board.
Credit: Los Angeles County Homeless Initiative
A home in the middle of Los Angeles has become an oasis for young adults brought together by one particular experience: homelessness.
The Dunamis House, located on Evergreen Avenue and two blocks away from Cesar Chavez Boulevard, offers a multitude of free services: a furnished room, freshly prepared meals, haircuts, workshops on topics like financial literacy, workout classes and more. Residents can also earn an income by working at the on-site café.
“There is no place like this. This is one of one,” said Sherbert Diaz, a Dunamis resident who moved into the home in December. “It gave me the opportunity to understand who I am and to leave the survival mode.”
Providing young adults with respite from the instability of homelessness is central to the mission of Los Angeles Room & Board, known as LAR&B, the nonprofit that owns and operates Dunamis House and three other homes in East Hollywood, West Adams and Westwood that serve the same purpose.
The organization was founded in 2020 by Sam Prater, who credits his 14 years of working in university student housing, plus his own experience of homelessness as a young adult, as the inspiration behind LAR&B.
“Offering someone a safe place to sleep is only one part of our mission,” Prater said. “The real work is trying to transform lives, and through the services that we provide and our incredible team, that’s where the real work happens.”
Homelessness has skyrocketed in Los Angeles in recent years. More than 6,000 children ages 0 to 17 and almost 4,000 young adults ages 18 to 24 were counted in last year’s annual survey, aimed at understanding how many people are experiencing homelessness, according to the county’s Homeless Services Authority. Such counts are typically considered estimates; advocates agree that homelessness is undercounted.
Homelessness is also most often part of a larger cycle of systemic challenges, such as high housing costs, financial instability, mental health illness and more. Exiting that cycle is far from clear-cut, and while a network of resources may often be available to someone experiencing homelessness, it can be difficult to figure out which they may qualify for and how to neatly combine them all together.
This is where LAR&B comes in. It does not expect the youth to figure out what resources they might need. Dunamis offers each resident all the resources they can. With this approach, residents have a more traditional homelike environment where, rather than trying to figure out where they will sleep every night, they can focus on attending school or earning an income.
‘You’re allowed to be who you want to be here’
Diaz had just turned 21 late last year, had no safe place to sleep, and was ineligible for a housing voucher for foster youth. Not knowing where to turn, he reached out to the Los Angeles LGBT Center, which in turn referred him to Dunamis.
As it turns out, the center is one of the places that refer young adults to LAR&B. This is because one of LAR&B’s main referral pipelines is through the county, Prater said. The LGBT Center is the lead agency for L.A. County’s coordinated entry system for youth, a network that connects people to housing.
LAR&B also receives referrals directly from colleges, including Santa Monica College and the Los Angeles Community College District, plus other partner agencies that work with foster youth, which have the organization on a list for students experiencing homelessness.
For Diaz, Dunamis was his “last hope,” he said. For years, he had been in the foster system, a system he said “never offered me peace of mind,” as Dunamis has. In the past, he was placed where he couldn’t be himself, he said, and was eventually kicked out of his last foster home for wearing makeup.
“My sexuality was always a problem,” Diaz said of the places he lived previously. “It’s a relief being (at Dunamis) because you don’t have the restrictions of anyone judging you. … You’re allowed to be who you want to be here.”
Many residents, like Josefina Sebastian, receive academic counseling while at Dunamis. She enrolled at Los Angeles City College when she arrived last April and has since transferred to California State University, Los Angeles, where she is majoring in social work.
With an active immigration case, Sebastian had found it difficult to access resources for people in her situation and was surprised to be accepted into Dunamis.
“Being here has helped me to focus more on school,” said Sebastian, 23, who also works at the Dunamis café.
Mimi Konadu, another resident, also enrolled in college after she moved into Dunamis last year, around the same time as Sebastian.
“I like that they want everybody to go to school,” she said, referring to LAR&B. She’d tried attending classes in the past, while living in the city of Palmdale in Los Angeles County, but couldn’t focus. Konadu, who is now 21, was also experiencing depression and anxiety, and being enrolled in online courses did not work for her.
“I just didn’t feel like doing anything at that time, until I got here,” said Konadu, who is attending East Los Angeles Community College. “I’m more productive every day.” The Dunamis staff’s presence and support made a significant difference, she added.
Some residents, like Dream Harris, have experienced homelessness their entire lives. He lived in Covenant House, a youth shelter in Los Angeles, right before moving to Dunamis.
While there, a friend mentioned LAR&B, but Harris said he wasn’t convinced. “It was too good to be true ‘cause I saw the pictures. I was like, ‘no, they’re going to ask for, like, money or something,” said Harris, his fellow Dunamis residents chiming in, agreeing that they too were taken aback by the beauty of the home.
“This place gives me an opportunity to really sit down and think about my decisions and what I want to do in life,” Harris said, echoing Diaz’s sentiment about finally living in a home that provided a sense of stability, so he could set aside the mindset of focusing solely on survival.
Dunamis is the first place where Harris, at 25 years old, has experienced this level of safety and stability. “I was raised in the worst of the worst. I lived on the streets at one point. I was on drugs at one point,” he said. “Now I have a nice bed to sleep in every night. I have a job now. I have opportunities, so many opportunities.”
That relief — of receiving new opportunities after extreme hardship and instability — is one that is shared by Prater, LAR&B’s founder, and it’s why Dunamis is designed and operated as it is.
As a young adult in Detroit, Prater had couch-surfed and was evicted twice. The 12th of 14 children, he was entering his teenage years when his mother died, catapulting the family into instability. His dad, he said, tried his best to offer his children as normal a childhood as possible, given their economic status, but it was tough with so many siblings.
Then, a local couple, whose church ministry was called Dunamis Outreach Ministries, learned of his family’s plight and took in three of his siblings. Prater wasn’t one of those, but he was at the Dunamis home often, and it was there that he learned there was “something more, something bigger” than the few options he had seen in front of him at that point.
That’s because in the Dunamis home, “everything is pretty, and it’s beautiful,” he said. “I felt like a weight lifted off me, and I’ll never forget that feeling of what that meant for me, what I aspired to, and then seeing them do it.”
Being exposed to such a beautiful home and generous family during those formative years provided Prater with a vision of a different life — one that he went on to pursue. He enrolled in community college at 23 and stayed in higher education, ultimately enrolling in a doctorate degree program.
“There wasn’t a way for me to repay them for the sacrifice they made for our family,” Prater said about why he named the Dunamis house after the couple that helped shape his purpose in life. “They just showed us a life in a world that we didn’t have access to in that way.”
That access to a beautiful, safe, supportive home seems to be the Dunamis way — both in Detroit where Prater lived and now in Los Angeles.
A 5-star version of student housing
In many ways, the Dunamis home’s operation is reminiscent of a college dorm.
The beds, for example, were purchased from a vendor that manufactures the extra-long twin beds typically found in dorm rooms. There is a communal kitchen that includes a fridge where, just as in a dorm, a meal might be eaten by someone other than the person it belongs to.
There are also meal times, as in a dorm’s dining hall. At Dunamis, lunch is served between noon and 2 p.m., dinner between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., and residents who plan to be around can submit requests to be fed on the weekends. On a recent Tuesday in April, the meal option was a freshly cooked spread of chicken, beef, rice, beans and vegetables, so each person could build their own bowl.
Dunamis House is large enough to include a backyard with a couple of grills and a garden that provides the produce for the meals cooked on-site, two kitchens — one that residents can use as needed, and the other where staff cooks the free meals — a lobby, and a courtyard in the middle of the building where residents gather to study or hang out.
The courtyard prior to LAR&B’s purchase of the home. Photo Credit: ZillowA design mock-up of the courtyard.Credit: Los Angeles Room & Board
What the Dunamis courtyard looks like today.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
Surrounding the patio are a hair salon, a podcast room, a café and at least four staff offices. The home also includes 64 beds, several study room, a sun room, a living room with a large TV for movie nights.
Lining the hallways of the multistory building are posters advertising upcoming events, like a garden club that is hosted once a month on Saturdays and a support group for male-identifying residents set to begin in April. Other hallways have bulletin boards with informational posters — one showing that April is Autism Awareness Month; others offer affirmations: “I am proud of my progress. I love my place in life.”
The Dunamis home.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
The home’s second kitchen, where residents can store their food. Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
There is always an extra bedroom available in case of a last-minute addition to the home or if there is a disagreement among roommates.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
A typical bathroom found in each bedroom.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
A hairstylist and barber provide free haircuts in this room every other week.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
One of the home’s many sitting nooks.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
In the lobby, residents can pick up Covid-19 tests and Narcan.Photo Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales
In the backyard, residents can grill and hang out underneath pergolas.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
Other aspects of the home are dictated by the unique needs of the residents. A team of social workers, for example, is on site to meet weekly with each resident, to discuss everything from their mental health, to career coaching, to basic resources needed for their families. A barber and hairstylist visit the home every other Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to offer free haircuts.
The home does not permit social drinking, which is typically associated with college students, but it addresses incidents of substance abuse by residents. At least five residents have been referred to outpatient care for such treatment, but their place at Dunamis remains available and ready for them as soon they once again “get grounded and get well,” Prater said.
Residents can live at Dunamis for up to 36 months, after which they have the option of moving to one of LAR&B’s other homes. At that point, they begin to pay a subsidized rent of $800 monthly. The idea, said Prater, is to slowly guide the young adults so they remain housed and stable long after leaving LAR&B.
In its design, Dunamis stands in sharp contrast to many of the places where residents lived previously, such as a group home or juvenile hall, where design is rarely a top priority.
“We’re trying to be the antithesis of that,” said Prater.
The home features walls painted in warm hues, ambient lighting, modern furniture and cushioned cozy seating nooks.
“Colors and fabrics and light and airflow — all those things impact people’s experience in housing,” said Prater. “I wanted to kind of create a space that felt aspirational, inspirational, that felt like, ‘Oh wow, I’m proud to come home here.’”
The lobby prior to LAR & B’s purchase of the home.Credit: Zillow
A design mock-up of the lobby.Credit: Los Angeles Room & Board
What the lobby looks like today.Credit: Betty Márquez Rosales / EdSource
His vision for Dunamis was shaped in part by his years working in university student housing, a career he left in February 2020 to grow LAR&B.
While working there, he’d hear stories from students who were trying to stay in school while struggling to meet their basic needs. He was limited in what he could offer those students — mostly short-term solutions, like a 14-day free stay in a dorm room and a $500 grant.
“If you got somebody who doesn’t have a place to live, you know how wildly disruptive it is to their life to say, ‘Alright, we can look out for you but only for 14 days’?” Prater said. “I formed L.A. Room & Board really in response to me working in that space and feeling powerless to help.”
The new Dunamis house is tucked between residential homes, an auto repair shop that hands out free meals on holidays, and a corner neighborhood market that features a mural by a locally renowned artist.
The building was originally built in 1914 but was vacant for years before LAR&B purchased it in 2022 for $11.6 million. That funding came from the California’s Homekey Program, which develops housing for the state’s homeless population. The Homekey grant requires that the county cover 45% of LAR&B’s operating costs for several years. The remaining $3 million to $3.5 million needed to cover ongoing operating costs each year is raised by Prater via private donations.
The land the building sits on measures over an acre, leaving sufficient space for large front and back yards. It’s in Boyle Heights, a neighborhood known for its deep history of social and political activism, most recently in its ongoing push against gentrification, and surrounded by downtown Los Angeles, Dodger Stadium and East Los Angeles.
And quite importantly for the LAR&B mission, the home is situated near multiple universities and colleges: University of Southern California, Cal State Los Angeles, and East Los Angeles Community College, to name a few.
But beyond the beauty of the space and its location, several residents said what most stood out to them is that they felt welcomed from day one.
“I think that’s what the difference is,” said Diaz with Konadu finishing his sentence, as Harris nodded in agreement: “It feels like a home.”
This story has been updated to correct Palmdale’s location. It is in Los Angeles County, not San Bernardino County.
Several days ago, I posted this horrible story about a young woman in Georgia who is on life support. She is brain dead. Because she was nine weeks pregnant when her brain died, Georgia law requires that she be kept in a vegetative state until the fetus can be delivered at 36 weeks.
“The decision should have been left to us- not the state”, says her family
Telnaes quit her job at The Washington Post when her editor refused to publish a cartoon showing the tech billionaires bowing to Trump. Jeff Bezos, the owner of the newspaper, was one of them. Telnaes won a Pulitzer Prize for that cartoon.
California State Board of Education student member Julia Clauson talks with First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom at a convening on smart phones hosted by the governor.
As national conversations about the role of states in public education unfold, it’s crucial to center these discussions around the most important stakeholders in our school system: students. In California, we ensure that student voices are included in policymaking by empowering them to become policymakers.
Within our state, there are numerous opportunities for students to get involved in education policy. One of the most significant opportunities for California students is applying to be the student board member for the State Board of Education, a position I currently hold. Every year, the governor appoints one student to serve, and the application and selection process takes place during the applicant’s junior year.
In fact, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently appointed my successor to the board, Vanessa Ejike, who is currently a junior at Whitney High School in Cerritos, California.
As my one-year term on the State Board of Education comes to an end this July, I reflect on the incredible opportunity I’ve had to represent the nearly 6 million students in California public schools. It’s an immense responsibility to be the only student with voting rights on the board. As the application opens for students in the class of 2027, I highly encourage all students to learn about the position and consider applying.
After the applications are received this fall, a screening committee for the State Board of Education selects 12 semifinalists, who are then invited to the Student Advisory Board on Education (SABE) hosted by the California Association of Student Councils. At SABE, the semifinalists present themselves to student delegates from across the state through speeches and question-and-answer sessions. This is a wonderful opportunity for them to showcase their advocacy, passions, and commitment to leadership. Finally, the student delegates at SABE vote for the top six candidates.
The top six semifinalists then interview with members of the State Board of Education, who select three finalists. During these interviews, candidates have the chance to share more about their past leadership experience, the topics they care about, and why they should be considered for the role. The board members select the three top candidates, who are then submitted to the governor’s office for interviews in the following months. The final selection is made by the governor.
Although the process may seem daunting, each step of the journey offers students opportunities to challenge themselves and develop leadership skills. I remember enjoying the chance to advocate for my community, share my perspective on policy, and engage with passionate students.
Since being appointed by Gov. Newsom, I have been able to connect with students from across California and work hard to bring their voices to the forefront of policy discussions. Outside of the board meetings in Sacramento, I have liaised with the Statewide Model Curriculum Coordinating Council and provided feedback on the developing Native American Studies curricula. I have also engaged with the National Association of State Boards of Education through their Student Advisory Council. Meeting and collaborating with student representatives from other states has been incredible, and together, we have worked to propose new policies that make high schools more engaging.
Last November, I met with the governor, the first partner, and various policymakers and educational leaders to discuss cellphone policies and restrictions. I was able to echo the concerns of my peers, amplify student voices, and learn from our leaders in education, health, and government.
To better connect with the diverse student body in California, I established the first student board member social media account (@ca_sbe_studentboardmember on Instagram). Since its inception, I’ve used the account to make policy more accessible by sharing information about board meetings, highlighting other student leaders, and providing opportunities for students to get involved with various councils and scholarships.
These are just a few examples of the impact the student board member can have. Each student who assumes this role has the freedom to make the position their own, identify their own priorities, and share their unique perspective.
Applying to be the student board member was initially daunting, but I’m incredibly grateful I took the step. Competing for the position offers applicants invaluable leadership and communication skills, fostering collaboration with various stakeholders in education policy.
All students in the class of 2027 should definitely apply to be the next student board member. It’s truly an exceptional and unique opportunity for students across California.
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Julia Clauson is the current student board member for the State Board of Education, California’s K-12 policymaking body for academic standards, curriculum, instructional materials, assessments and accountability.
The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
